"God sees you not only as mortal beings on a small planet who lives for a brief season -- He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him." Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Friends and Germs

I am feeling myself musing yet again on that parenting issue of how to deal with childhood illnesses. That Lo has a cough. I chose to keep him home from swim/gym yesterday. But am sort of thinking to go to playgroup tomorrow...and realizing now why some parents become casual about letting their sick children go out and about--because more often than not, children seem to have some sort of sickness and I am going crazy trying to decide what socializing to expose him to or not. We cannot stay quarantined for 100% of the times in question. I am starting to regard illness by degrees. Is he low-level sick? Extremely ill? etc. And his friends who are potential share-ers of disease: are they low level or highly contagious? And do I care if that Lo catches what they've got? aaaaah! I feel consternation yet again. This thing called parenting leaves me frequently humbled by how often I have to say "hmmm...I'm not sure what I think." I did a hypnobabies fear release session while falling asleep last night (Jerry actually loves that track and listens to it almost every night). I tried to release fears related to doing "the right thing" for parenting. I think it helped. Though obviously I still have insomnia, as evidenced by the fact that I am blogging this post in the middle of the night. But anyway I'm feeling more peaceful now. Because really that Lo is basically healthy, and we live in a part of the world with good access to medical care, and life has challenges like sickness and pain...but we can gain from experiences both good and bad. So I'll just try to go back to sleep now.

p.s. That photo above is a recent playdate Lo had with some neighbor boys. They have this little tent which Lo Lo loved so much, he kept going into their bedroom to sit in the tent all by himself. (the rest of us were playing in the living room). So we brought the tent out to the living room after that and Lo squished in it with the other two boys. All three of them stuffed their cheeks with snacks, huddled together in this tiniest tent, and it was a darling moment.

6 comments:

I know how you feel but more often than naught I realize it is futile to keep your kids from "getting" it. Even when you quarantine yourself from all the sniffly noses when you return your child is more than likely going to touch something that wasn't disinfected or someone who has no symptoms but is carrying the germ. I use a lot of oils to help when the kids could get something or have something and it usually minimizes or prevents any damages.

Yeah, Susie that sounds like what our doctor said about kids just "getting it" no matter what you do. He mentioned if Lo doesn't catch it now, he will in a few years when he starts kindergarten. Just a childhood rite of passage I guess. Hopefully when Spring gets here we won't have such a constant stream of illness in our house. It really just began once he started going to nursery a month or two back...*sigh*

I'm far from being a germaphobe, but I think keeping kids home when sick is the best policy. I know all kids will get sick at one point or another. but you never know how that sickness is going to affect another child. a slight cough for your child could lead to a fever, sore throat strep for another. everyone has a different chemical make up and the fact of the matter is you never know what could make your child sick. I absolutely hate the mall pay structure. but the boys love it. I'm just very cautious about what they tough and try my best to clean their hands before, during and after we play. I feel if you are going to go out make sure you let others know your little one has a slight cough, or was sick. as a heads up to others.

Jocelyn, I agree totally that it is a best policy in GENERAL to keep sick kids home. And any time I've taken him to playgroup on a questionable day, of course I've talked to the other moms about it.

I guess my musings were more along the lines of how to balance physical with mental well being. Mine and Lo's social/emotional/mental health has been suffering these past few weeks of winter as it feels we've had nonstop sickness. when Jerry has the car at work every day so we can't even go out for a simple shopping trip (he gets home from work right about the time Lo gets ready for bed), it is too cold to go outside longer than 5 mins. at a time...Lo and me have been having cabin fever like non other.

I understand that I get cabin fever bad in the winter but I am still iffy about where I go when me kids are even a little bit sick {which they hardly are anyway} I have friends and family that always complain about how their child got sick from so and so. and all I say is if you knew they were sick don't take you child over there.anyway I'm glad your little guys all had fun together!

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Jerry is a supply-chain guru turned auditor, Courtney a SAHM. Mr. Lo, three-year-old is adept at making and leaving friends (we've moved 8 times in his lifespan, covering 5 different states). He was joined recently by Miss Ro, smiley baby of the home. We dabble in multilingualism. We immerse ourselves in faith and religion. Jerry and Courtney both graduated with BS degrees in 2009 from Brigham Young University in Provo. Jerry added a second bachelor's to his list of accomplishments when he graduated from Boise State University in 2012. We live in California.